Video: Managing files and folders

If you're like me, when you work on a site you're constantly creating new files and folders, renaming files, moving files around within your directory structure, all sorts of mayhem. Let's face it. No matter how well you plan your site, chances are you're going to modify the directory structure at one time or another. Now to make those kinds of changes to your site I strongly recommend using the Files panel, that you will find right over here. Instead of going out say to Windows Explorer or the Finder Panel in the Mac, the reason for that is the Files panel can be used for a lot of different things.

Discover how to build web sites, prototypes, and more in this course on Adobe Dreamweaver CS6. Author James Williamson shows designers how to take control of their site by properly naming and structuring files and folders; how to create new documents and web pages from scratch or with starter pages; and how to add content such as text, images, tables, and links. James also provides a background on the languages that power projects built in Dreamweaver—HTML and CSS—and introduces the programming features in the application, for developers who want to dig right into the code. The last chapter shows how to finesse your project with interactive content such as CSS3 transitions and Spry widgets.

Managing files and folders

If you're like me, when you work on a site you're constantly creating new filesand folders, renaming files, moving files around within your directorystructure, all sorts of mayhem. Let's face it.No matter how well you plan your site, chances are you're going to modify thedirectory structure at one time or another.Now to make those kinds of changes to your site I strongly recommend using theFiles panel, that you will find right over here.Instead of going out say to Windows Explorer or the Finder Panel in the Mac, the reason for that is the Files panel can be used for a lot of different things.

For example, you can create new files and folders with it, you can renameexisting files, move files and folders, copy and paste files, everything thatyou can do in Windows Explorer or the Mac Finder.But the reason is not just because it's the most efficient way to make thosechanges rather than having to go back outside of the program, but there is abigger reason, it's the safest way to make those changes.Now websites by their very nature, rely on understanding where other files are.When you place an image on the page or you link to another file, Dreamweaverplaces code on your page that tells the browser where it can find thatparticular file or resource to either resolve the link or display the image.

If you move a file and the link to it doesn't update along with it, those links are no longer going to work, or in the case of an image the image just doesn't display anymore.Now that's especially problematic for larger sites where dozens of pages mightlink to a single page.Making all those changes manually or making the changes outside of Dreamweaverwould take a considerable amount of time.But if you remember to use the Files panel to make those changes, Dreamweaverwill automatically update all the links on the page as well as any pages in yoursite that linked to it, and it saves you a tremendous amount of time.

So let's take a closer look at using the Files panel to manage files andfolders in our site.Now I don't have it pointing to the right directory right now because I wanted to show you, for those of you that skipped the Exercise Files movie,how basically the process of redefining a site or pointing it to a new rootdirectory works, and we are going to do this for every exercise within our title.So I am just going to right up here to the Files panel.In this pull-down menu I am going to double-click the name of our site.That's a very quick and easy way to bring the Site Setup dialog box back up.It's sort of one of those hidden features.

You can certainly go to Site, Manage Sites, click this site and then edit it,but this is just so much faster.Okay, so here's the site we defined in our last movie and it still pointingto the same folder.If I don't change the name but click the Browse icon, I can simply redirectit to a new folder, and in this case, I want to redirect it to, in theChapter_02 directory, 02_04.So again, I am going to open that folder up, hit Select, Save it and it willre-cache it up and I'll see a new set of files show up over here in the Files panel.

So make sure that you are pointing to the 02_04 folder.So the first thing I want to show off about the Files panel in terms of the sitemanagement capabilities is the creation of new files and folders, and it's something that you are going to be doing a good bit.There are a lot of different ways to do it.You can come over and create new here, you can do it from the menu where you goto File>New, but you are also free to do it right here in the Files panel.If I go up to the root directory and I right-click it, notice that one of theoptions that I get is New File.If I go up and do that it creates a brand new untitled.html file in mydirectory structure.

And whatever folder you right-clicked that's the directory it's going to place that in.So I am just going to go ahead and give this a name.And so if you clicked off of it, just click back once and then one more time tohighlight the text here, I am just going to title it test.html.Now notice it got the .html extension and that's because the preferences that I have set.Once I change my preferences later on, and I will show you how to do that in amovie in just a little bit, you will be able to get exactly the extension thatyou are looking for.Okay, so what's in this document?Well, if I open it up, nothing, absolutely nothing.It's just a blank empty untitled document. That's extremely helpful in terms of,if you build out wireframes and you don't have any files you need in eachdirectory, you can just go ahead and start creating new files and naming themwhat they are supposed to be named in the directories and then open those filesup and start working on them.

Now you can also delete files.So if I select this file and right-click it, I can go up to Edit and choose Delete. It's going to get rid of that file. It's going to ask me, because whenyou delete it, it really does delete it right from your hard drive and off it goes, don't need that anymore.Okay, now another thing that we can do is rename files, and one of the things I want to do here just so you can see this a little bit better,I am going to extend the width of my Files Panel out by grabbing that sort ofside handle and extending it out, and then these columns here, I'm free to rearrange the size of those as well.

So I want to take the name and extend that so that you guys can see what it isthat I am working on here.Okay, so student-spotlight, it's accurate, that is what is in that page.It's the current student-spotlight.However, remember what I said earlier about our file naming? That's really long.So I want to rename that to just spotlight.Well, it's very easy to do, all I have to do is click once to highlight the fileand then click one more time. You don't want to click too fast or you will endup double-clicking it, and then that's going to highlight the name of that.And now I can just remove the student- and just save it as spotlight.

As soon as I'm done I can hit Return. That's going to change that.Now here is where the power of managing files and folders insideDreamweaver starts to show up.As soon as I make a change to an existing file, especially one that has links to it or out from it, Dreamweaver is going to ask me, hey!Wait a second. The Index page was linked to this, do you want me to go aheadand update that link.Remember, that you link to the page before would have been student-spotlight,but now it's just spotlight.So I can say, yeah, yeah, sure go ahead and Update that, and Dreamweaver justsaved me a tremendous amount of work.

I didn't have to open up the Index page and change all the links on the pagethat might linked to the student-spotlight, I just did it in one fell swoop.That's kind of simple because it's only one page, but imagine that you have a site with, oh, I don't know, 50 pages that linked to it.Imagine how much work you just saved yourself.I need to do a little bit of reorganization. For example, graphic-design andprograms need to be in a subdirectory called Programs, and right now they arewithin the root directory.So I can use the Files panel to do that for me as well.I am going to come right up to the root folder, I am going to right-click thatand tell it this time to create a New Folder.

So that's going to create a new directory within my site and I can just go aheadand call that one, programs.So I have a subdirectory that I need for that, now I need to move the files.Once again, it's really, really simple, I simply select the files that I need,in this case, graphic-design, and now I am going to hold down either the Ctrlor the Command key so I can select non-contiguous files, and I am going toselect programs as well.So, both of those need to go in a subdirectory.So I have got both of those highlighted, I am just going to click-and-dragdown into the programs directory and when I release, once again, I get thisnice little message from Dreamweaver saying, wait a second. You are moving those files.

So any links to those files and any links that are currently in those filespointing to other files in my site aren't going to be broken if you move this.How about, do you want to update those links?And by clicking Update, once again, I saved myself a bunch of work.Now if I had gone out to the Finder Panel or the Windows Explorer panel and move those files around certainly I could have created the directory structure,I could have move the files in there, but the updating to links would not have occurred.So the next time I come back in Dreamweaver, I would open it up, I test my site out, and none of links would work, and now I would have like an afternoon'sworth of work ahead of me.

So that's the main reason that I recommend using the Files panel when you're managing your files and folder inside Dreamweaver.Of course, that's not all the Files panel can do. Later on in this title we willdiscuss using the Files panel to upload files and manage site synchronization.For now however, concentrate on making sure that you practice discipline whenneeding to make changes on your site. Make these updates from within Dreamweaverusing the Files panel and you will be confident in making those changescorrectly and without breaking site functionality.

Learn by watching, listening, and doing, Exercise files are the same files the author uses in the course, so you can download them and follow along Premium memberships include access to all exercise files in the library.

Already a member ?

Learn by watching, listening, and doing! Exercise files are the same files the author uses in the course, so you can download them and follow along. Exercise files are available with all Premium memberships.
Learn more

Upgrade to our Annual Premium Membership today and get even more value from your lynda.com subscription:

“In a way, I feel like you are rooting for me. Like you are really invested in my experience, and want me to get as much out of these courses as possible this is the best place to start on your journey to learning new material.”— Nadine H.

Thanks for signing up.

We’ll send you a confirmation email shortly.

Sign up and receive emails about lynda.com and our online training library:

new course releases

newsletter

general communications

special notices

Here’s our privacy policy with more details about how we handle your information.

Keep up with news, tips, and latest courses with emails from lynda.com.

Sign up and receive emails about lynda.com and our online training library:

new course releases

newsletter

general communications

special notices

Here’s our privacy policy with more details about how we handle your information.